Chapter Clout to Cock and Pie of C by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Clytie, a water-nymph, in love with Apollo. Meeting with no return, she was changed into a sunflower, or rather a tournesol, which still turns to the sun, following him through his daily course.

N.B.—The sunflower does not turn to the sun. On the same stem may be seen flowers in every direction, and not one of them shifts the direction in which it has first opened. T. Moore (1814) says—

The sunflower turns on her god when he sets The same look which she turned when he rose.

(This may do in poetry, but it is not correct. The sunflower is so called simply because the flower resembles a picture sun.)

N.B.—Lord Thurlow (1821) adopted Tom Moore’s error, and enlarged it—

Behold, my dear, this lofty flower That now the golden sun receives; No other deity has power, But only Phœbus, on her leaves; As he in radiant glory burns, From east to west her visage turns.
   —The Sunflower.

Clytus, an old officer in the army of Philip of Macedon, and subsequently in that of Alexander. At a banquet, when both were heated with wine, Clytus said to Alexander, “Philip fought men, but Alexander women,” and after some other insults, Alexander in his rage stabbed the old soldier; but instantly repented and said—

What has my vengeance done?
Who is it thou hast slain? Clytus? What was he?
The faithfullest subject, worthiest counsellor,
The bravest soldier. He who saved my life,
Fighting bare-headed at the river Granic,
For a rash word, spoke in the heat of wine,
The poor, the honest Clytus thou hast slain,—
Clytus, thy friend, thy guardian, thy preserver!
   —Lee: Alexander the Great, iv. 2 (1678).

Cneus, the Roman officer in command of the guard set to watch the tomb of Jesus, lest the disciples should steal the body, and then declare that it had risen from the dead.—Klopstock: The Messiah, xiii. (1771).

Coaches, says Stow, in his Chronicle, were introduced by Fitz-Allen, earl of Arundel, in 1580.

Before the costly coach and silken stock came in.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xvi. (1613).

Coal Hole (The), subsequently called “The Cyder Cellars,” Fountain Court, Strand (London), was founded by John Rhodes, a burly fellow with a bass voice, for the coal-heavers and coal-whippers of the adjacent Thames wharves. Rhodes died in 1847, and the last manager, before the house was demolished, was Charles Wilmot. The entertainment was some trial which was licentiously perverted.

Coals. To carry coals, to put up with affronts. The boy says in Henry V. (act iii. sc. 2), “I knew…the men would carry coals.” So in Romeo and Juliet (act i. sc. 1), “Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals.” Ben Jonson, in Every Man out of His Humour, says, “Here comes one that will carry coals, ergo, will hold my dog.”

The time hath been when I would ‘a scorned to carry coals.—Troubles of Queene Elizabeth (1639).

(To carry corn is to bear wealth, to be rich. He does not carry corn well, “He does not deport himself well in his prosperity.”)

Coan (The), Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine” (B.C. 460–357).

…the great Coan, him whom Nature made To serve the costliest creature of her tribe [man].
   —Dante: Purgatory, xxix. (1308).

Coanocotzin , king of the Aztecas. Slain in battle by Madoc.—Southey: Madoc (1805).